Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue,
Mother, O mother, my heart calls for you!
Many a summer the grass has grown green,
Blossomed and faded, our faces between;
Yet, with strong yearning and passionate pain,
Long I to-night for your presence again;
Come from the silence so long and so deep;◄
Rock me to sleep, mother,-rock me to sleep!

Over my heart, in the days that are flown,
No love like mother-love ever has shone;
No other worship abides and endures,
Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours;
None like a mother can charm away pain
From the sick soul and the world-weary brain:
Slumber's soft calms o'er my heavy lids creep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother,—rock me to sleep!

Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold,
Fall on your shoulders again as of old;
Let it drop over my forehead to-night,
Shading my faint eyes away from the light;
For with its sunny-edged shadows once more
Haply will throng the sweet visions of yore;
Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep;―
Rock me to sleep, mother,-rock me to sleep!

Mother, dear mother, the years have been long
Since I last listened your lullaby song;
Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem
Womanhood's years have been only a dream;
Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace,
With your light lashes just sweeping my face,
Never hereafter to wake or to weep;-
Rock me to sleep, mother,—rock me to sleep!
ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN.

Only a Baby Small.

ONLY a baby small,

Dropt from the skies,
Only a laughing face,
Two sunny eyes;
Only two cherry lips,
One chubby nose;
Only two little hands,

Ten little toes.

Only a golden head,
Curly and soft;

Only a tongue that wags

Loudly and oft;
Only a little brain,

Empty of thought;

Only a little heart,

Troubled with nought.

Only a tender flower

Sent us to rear;
Only a life to love

While we are here;

Only a baby small,

Never at rest;

Small, but how dear to us,

God knoweth best.

MATTHIAS BARR

The Jolly Old Pedagogue.

"T WAS a jolly old pedagogue, long ago,

Tall and slender, and sallow, and dry; His form was bent, and his gait was slow, His long, thin hair was as white as snow;

But a wonderful twinkle shone in his eye,

And he sang every night as he went to bed, "Let us be happy down here below;a e

The living should live, though the dead be dead," Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

He taught his scholars the rule of three,
Writing, and reading, and history too,
Taking the little ones on his knee,

For a kind old heart in his breast had he,

And the wants of the smallest child he knew:

"Learn while you 're young," he often said,
"There is much to enjoy down here below;
Life for the living, and rest for the dead,"
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

With stupidest boys, he was kind and cool,
Speaking only in gentlest tones;

The rod was scarcely known in his school;
Whipping to him was a barbarous rule,

And too hard work for his poor old bones; "Besides, it was painful," he sometimes said, "We should make life pleasant here below, The living need charity more than the dead," Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

He lived in the house by the hawthorn lane,
With roses and woodbine over the door;
His rooms were quiet and neat and plain,
But a spirit of comfort there held reign,

And made him forget he was old and poor.

"I need so little," he often said,

"And my friends and relatives here below Won't litigate over me when I am dead,”

Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

But the most pleasant times that he had, of all, Were the sociable hours he used to pass,

With his chair tipped back to a neighbor's wall,
Making an unceremonious call,

Over a pipe and a friendly glass;-
"This was the sweetest pleasure," he said,
"Of the many I share in here below;
Who has no cronies, had better be dead,"
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

The jolly old pedagogue's wrinkled face
Melted all over in sunshiny smiles;—
He stirred his glass with an old-school grace,
Chuckled, and sipped, and prattled apace,

Till the house grew merry from cellar to tiles;"I'm a pretty old man," he gently said,

"I've lingered a long while here below,
But my heart is fresh, if my youth be fled!"
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

He smoked his pipe in the balmy air,

Every night when the sun went down,
While the soft wind played in his silvery hair,
Leaving its tenderest kisses there

On the jolly old pedagogue's jolly old crown;
And feeling the kisses, he smiled and said,
"'T is a glorious world down here below;
Why wait for happiness till we are dead?
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

He sat at his door one midsummer night,
After the sun had sunk in the west,
And the lingering beams of golden light
Made his kindly old face look warm and bright,
While the odorous night-wind whispered "Rest!

Gently, gently he bowed his head,—

There were angels waiting for him, I know;

He was sure of happiness, living or dead,

This jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

GEORGE ARNOLD

Ode on the Centenary of Burns.

WE hail this morn

A century's noblest birth;

A Poet peasant-born,

Who more of Fame's immortal dower

Unto his country brings

Than all her kings!

As lamps high set

Upon some earthly eminence;

And to the gazer brighter thence
Than the sphere lights they flout—
Dwindle in distance and die out,
While no star waneth yet;

So through the past's far-reaching night
Only the star-souls keep their light.

A gentle boy,

With moods of sadness and of mirth,
Quick tears and sudden joy,
Grew up beside the peasant's hearth.
His father's toil he shares;

But half his mother's cares

From his dark, searching eyes,

Too swift to sympathize,

Hid in her heart she bears.

At early morn

His father calls him to the field;

Through the stiff soil that clogs his feet,

Chill rain, and harvest heat,

He plods all day; returns at eve outworn,

To the rude fare a peasant's lot doth yield

To what else was he born?

The God-made king
Of every living thing;